Being Human
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Sequel to 'Rough Justice'. There are unresolved issues aboard Enterprise.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story been beta-read by VesperRegina, to whom I offer my sincere thanks, as always.**

 **Author's Note: There are references in this story to my earlier story 'The Waiting Game' and readers who are unfamiliar with this may find difficulty in understanding them.**

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The chime rang, startling her.

It would have been inappropriate for her to feel dismay, but certainly T'Pol felt a degree of apprehension suddenly descend on her. That, she felt, was allowable in the circumstances. After all, the previous encounter had not ended agreeably, and the ramifications elsewhere of what had happened to bring it to such an unexpected close were still to be seen.

Lieutenant Reed stepped inside as soon as she gave him permission to enter. At a guess, he was no more sanguine about the coming ordeal than she was; his expression was carefully controlled, but he appeared somewhat pale.

"I trust you are now recovered from your injury, Lieutenant," she said formally, rising from the meditation cushion on which she'd been kneeling.

"Sufficiently so, Sub-Commander," he replied, coming to parade-rest in front of her; an answer which told her nothing, precisely as he intended it to.

Since he was not on duty he was not in uniform, instead clad in a simple gray tracksuit. Nevertheless his posture was absolutely formal, and she could understand that he was taking refuge in that because the process to which he was submitting himself was most unsettling to him.

Well. Perhaps 'unsettling' was too mild a term. To judge by his reaction last time, he found it … _terrifying._

She was unsure as yet precisely why this should be the case. Naturally he would have undergone intensive training from Section 31 to enable him to resist any form of interrogation, but although she had expected the appropriate degree of resistance on that front, this in itself would not have accounted for the sense of real anguish that she had felt from him as she probed deeper into his past. His allegiance to Starfleet's Secret Operations branch was like a tumor that needed to be excised, and to do so it was important that she reach right back to its origins. With his conscious will he was consenting, but she was beginning to believe that something he had buried very deep indeed was beyond the reach of his consent.

As yet, she had no idea what it might be. It was unlikely in the extreme that he would willingly divulge it in ordinary conversation, even if he actually remembered it. There was a strong possibility that it could be something buried in his subconscious, in which case forcing him to face it could have extremely serious consequences, possibly affecting him for the rest of his life. Not merely his tenure on _Enterprise_ , but his career in Starfleet and even his entire mental health could be at stake. She resolved to proceed only with extreme care, and if he became as irrational as he had done on the previous occasion she would bring the session to a halt and consult with Phlox before scheduling another.

She placed the cushion carefully on her bunk, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. She indicated that he should sit opposite her, and after a brief hesitation he did so. Their knees were now almost touching.

"You are still willing to proceed with this," she stated. It was unlikely that he would be here if he was not, but still the fact needed to be plainly established; here, if at all, was the place at which he would indicate if he had any second thoughts. It was possible that the events of the first stage of his treatment had raised issues which he felt needed to be addressed before they went further – though he would probably choose not to allude to the less expected happenings of that night.

"I'm not sure I have any choice, Sub-Commander," the Englishman replied, with a wry glance in her direction. "Not if I want to stay aboard _Enterprise_ , at any rate."

"You now feel the captain was unjust to impose that condition?" she asked carefully. This was a subject she had raised before; it was important to establish his mental situation at each stage of the treatment. Originally he'd seemed submissive enough to the order of his commanding officer, but the trauma of the procedure could already have caused much disruption in his emotional state.

He'd seemed genuinely surprised by the question when she'd posed it on the previous occasion, and now blinked in confusion at being asked it for a second time. "No, not at all. As I said last time, if he was willing to take the chance on me at all, it was the obvious precaution to take."

"And despite how … unpleasant the first session was to you, you still wish me to proceed."

"'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'!" he quoted drily.

She recognized the quotation as being from Shakespeare's _Henry V._ "I hardly anticipate filling up any part of the ship with English dead," she replied, with a quirk of one eyebrow, capping the quotation. "Since the only English person on the ship is yourself, I suspect that the captain would not approve of such an outcome. It is not within the remit of our current activity."

From the fleeting, bitter smile that touched his mouth, he was probably recalling the time when Captain Archer had confronted him in the Brig. She had not been present during that interview, but from the way the captain had behaved before and after it she suspected that his tactical officer's betrayal had touched a very raw nerve indeed, and that he had not been sparing with his words. It was most unlikely that the captain would have actually expressed a wish to see Lieutenant Reed lying dead at his feet, but probably that was the way the lieutenant had received it.

She was about to instruct him that they should both kneel so that she could reach his _psi_ points, but something made her hesitate.

To go onward without warning him that she knew something was wrong smacked strongly of dishonor.

To be sure, he must know that he was taking a risk; he must be aware that she would have to delve very deeply into his past. As a Section field operative, it was quite certain that he would have taken part in activities of questionable legality, of which he might well now be deeply ashamed. But he might not even be aware that there was something that was far from resolved, something that resisted discovery with all the brute violence of a sehlat coiled about its death wound.

Whether he realized it or not, he was hiding something.

He was watching her, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead. "Sub-Commander?"

She exhaled.

"I have something to say to you, Lieutenant," she said slowly. "It is a matter of – some delicacy. One that is perhaps something that it would be easier to discuss … between friends."

His eyebrows rose. He looked both intrigued and uneasy. "I'm not sure I understand."

He waited, nevertheless, while she rose and fetched them both peppermint tea from the flask she'd put ready. It was still a little hot, but he sipped it cautiously, looking at her over the top of the cup.

"As you already know, it is necessary for me delve back into your past," she went on, settling herself down again, knee to knee with him as before. "I understand that you may well have carried out orders that ran contrary to your conscience; this is an unpleasant duty that covert operatives often find themselves faced with. Whatever I discover, I will not hold you personally responsible for it. That responsibility lies with those who issued those orders."

His face was suddenly grim. "I'm not sure that I can be absolved quite that easily, Sub-Commander. Every man has the ultimate responsibility for his own actions. I may not have been responsible for the orders, but I was certainly responsible for obeying them."

"Indeed," she agreed. "But I would hazard a guess that however distasteful the orders were to you personally, you believed that they were – in the last analysis – given in the pursuit of some ultimate good."

"'The end justifies the means', in other words. I'm not sure I believed that even then. But sometimes – to be utterly frank – I'm not sure I cared very much."

The admission startled her. He looked back at her, and there was suddenly an odd, almost lazy grin lurking around his mouth; but it got nowhere near his eyes, and was eerily void of humor. "You go poking around in dark places, T'Pol, you're liable to find dark secrets. I'm quite sure you're already aware of some of mine."

"Your life as an operative would not be compatible with your current moral standards," she conceded. "Possibly you forget that as an ex-operative for the V'Shar, I am in the best position of all to understand the conflict."

He rose to his feet suddenly and walked to the viewing port. He always moved lightly and easily, though with the erect posture of the discipline he observed and demanded, but now there was something loose, almost _too_ relaxed, about his attitude.

"You honestly think that working for the Section allows you to have a _conscience?_ " A soft laugh. "It's a nice idea. But I'd have expected to hear it from the captain, not from you." He swung around again, and that strange alteration in his manner was now even more pronounced: he'd thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket top, and leaned against the wall. His eyes gleamed at her mockingly.

Without altering her position, she tilted her head to consider him. Although she was confident that her face betrayed nothing of her consternation, she was nevertheless considerably perturbed by this turn of events. All Starfleet personnel, particularly those chosen to serve on spacefaring vessels, were put through a rigorous series of psychological tests. The man by the viewing port was exhibiting the classic signs of a dual personality, and as such should have been debarred from holding any post of responsibility, let alone that of a Head of Security.

It seemed that he had been able to divine her thoughts. "No," he said, shaking his head with a rueful, twisted smile, "I'm not mad, T'Pol. I don't hear voices or see visions. But when I worked for the Section, I…" He turned back to the port and stared out at the darkness. "I had to be someone else."

"This was your deliberate choice."

"In part, I suppose so, yes. We all do what we have to in order to survive."

She stood up at that, and moved towards him. "It is the part of the process which was _not_ your deliberate choice which concerns me. There, if anywhere, is where your compulsion to obey Harris's orders lies."

He exhaled. "Perhaps you should put me in restraints first."

"I do not believe that will be necessary."

"I think it may be the only way either of us will get through this."

She searched his face. He was not joking.

"Perhaps I should obtain advice from Doctor Phlox before proceeding, if you believe that the process will be so traumatic for you. It will be safest for you if a medical practitioner is involved."

"If you do that, you place him in very real danger," he said flatly. "I agreed to this on condition that only you were a participant. If that condition can't be met, I withdraw my consent."

T'Pol was startled by this blunt statement, and showed it. "He is bound by the laws of patient confidentiality. You surely do not harbor any doubt of his deserving your trust."

"I trust him with my _life_ , T'Pol. The unfortunate fact is that it's not my trust that is in question. He already knows something of my inglorious past, and telling him that much was a risk. Exposing him any further would be downright dangerous. He doesn't deserve that and I won't do it. My duty is to protect the people aboard _Enterprise_ , not needlessly endanger them."

"But you feel no concern on _my_ behalf," she observed, raising an eyebrow.

Again the twisted smile. "You're a Vulcan and a member of the V'Shar. And don't give me 'ex-'; we both know there's no 'ex' for an operative, not really. You might be flattered to know in what respect the Section holds you. However concerned they may be about you delving among my dirty little secrets, they'll trust you to hold your tongue. If you don't, of course, they may be vexed."

"You believe that they would be able to obtain that much confidential information about what goes on here on board ship, millions of kilometers from Earth?"

"They have access to every one of the logs submitted to Starfleet," he said harshly. "The captain's is not an exception. Believe me, they'll already be aware that you and I will be having this conversation. At a guess, they'll also believe that I'm a tough nut to crack. That will leave you the option to get down and get _very_ dirty with me."

There was a long silence.

At the end of it, he lifted his jacket. She watched as he unfastened four cords from around his waist and handed them to her. "You'll have to excuse me the laugh, T'Pol. If the circumstances were different, this would be the experience of my lifetime. As it is, it's going to be as much as I can do to let you do what you'll have to."

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	2. Chapter 2

She had been thorough.

The only thing in the room that the lieutenant had felt adequate for the job was the table, which was bolted to the floor – like most articles of furniture in the ship, to avoid sudden and hazardous displacement should it be necessary for _Enterprise_ to perform some particularly abrupt change of direction. He sat with his back to it, and she tied his arms to the table-legs. His own legs were bound together, and he shifted position so that they could be anchored to one of the table-legs too; it would be uncomfortable for him, but safer for her.

Now she sat down in front of him, and thought that it was just as well that Captain Archer had little real concept of what this 'de-programming' would involve. Certainly it was extremely unlikely that he would imagine that his tactical officer would put up such violent resistance that he would have to be restrained.

"I ask you once again, Lieutenant, before we begin: Do you give your consent?"

He'd been completely silent as she bound him. His head drooped forward, hiding his face, but at this he lifted it.

She thought she had never seen such despair.

"I consent."

More words stood on her tongue, but she swallowed them. He already knew that it was going to be one of the worst experiences of his entire existence.

She leaned forward. Her fingers came to rest lightly on his psi points. "My mind to your mind…"

A shudder ran through him.

"My thoughts to your thoughts…"

Resistance. Desperate, fearful. It had been bad last time. This time was worse. Now he knew how strong she was, how hard she could push. Knew how far she intended to go.

"Our minds are merging…"

 _Our minds are one_ would have been farcical, unless _one_ was used in the term of one single vortex of conflict. During her _kahs-wan_ T'Pol had witnessed a fight between two male sehlats competing for territory; there had been moments when it had been utterly impossible to distinguish one animal from the other, so closely were they locked in a battle that must end in the death of one of them.

Suddenly, Reed began to struggle; wildly, blindly, trying to throw off her hand, trying to push away her thoughts. But he was too late, the castle wall was already breached, and she was mustering her forces to assault the keep itself.

 _"No!"_ He thrashed and kicked against his bonds, straining backwards so desperately it hardly seemed possible that his spine could survive intact. She followed him over perforce, their bodies pressed together so that she could feel the frantic thudding of his heart inside the chest that jerked spasmodically with every indrawn breath.

 _"Reed… Lieut… Re…Re….Jagu… No, no, NO!"_ He loosed off a tirade of filth. There was foam at the edge of his mouth. _"Reed. Lieutenant. Malcolm. Reed. Lieutenant. Malcolm. Jaguar. Lieutenant. Malcolm. Fuck you. Reed. Lieutenant. Jaguar. Re … Ree…. Fuck you, get out of my head, bitch. Maguar, Mag, one hundred, ninety nine, Alfred the Great, Ethelred the Unready, Charles–"_ Abruptly his voice changed, became almost a wail: _"Pard, help me!"_

T'Pol too was almost gasping for breath. She was as much lying on him as against him by this time, and perspiration was running down her face. It was like carving a way through an iceberg, and every shard that shattered away cut into her flesh. The pain behind his cry lanced through her, momentarily making her pause; and in that moment the ice began reforming, and threatened to close on her like a thousand freezing knives.

But there was something there – something, entombed in the very heart of this hideous fortress. And she had to find it.

She cut deeper. Now he was beyond speech. Even his movements had become unstrung; he jerked in her grip as though transfixed by an intermittent electrical current. His head was up, but he no longer looked at her: his eyes were fixed wide open, staring into hell.

 _Our minds are one._

The cage.

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	3. Chapter 3

He remained absolutely still as she withdrew, with the utter stillness of catatonia. His posture must have been incredibly painful, but he did not move a muscle to relax it as her weight came off him.

Slowly and gently, she unfastened the ties that kept him prisoner. His wrists were scored almost raw where he'd wrenched at them; they would need attention later in Sickbay, but that could wait.

He still didn't move.

She stood up, and brushed an unsteady hand across her face. This was something she would never have imagined she would have to deal with. One wrong move now, one wrong word or even look, and the thing that had been Lieutenant Malcolm Reed would spend the rest of its life in a mental institution. And she herself had some serious mental adjustments to make.

After a moment, she walked over to her bed and sat down with her back to it. It felt natural to sit cross-legged, so she did. Then, with an effort, she closed her eyes and stilled her mind.

And waited.

During the period of waiting, she gingerly examined the results of her search so far.

Had she had less experience among Humans, the experience would probably have damaged her view of them permanently. She had experienced the killing of Jossen as an emotional shockwave, and had expected something of the same among Reed's memories. It was almost worse to find that no such reaction existed, or ever had.

He was such a moral man that she was unable to process the fact that he had carried out killings with such callous efficiency as his memories suggested. Nothing was what she would have expected from what she knew of him. He had wreaked havoc and death with the calculating savagery of a born killer, caring almost nothing if the innocent died as well. True, afterwards there had been reaction – of a kind – but whatever remorse he felt had fed into a vicious circle of destructiveness and self-loathing. Right from the moment of _the cage_ he had been a person she could barely recognize, and even now she could barely take in the truth.

 _Enterprise_ 's Chief Tactical Officer had been one of Starfleet's Covert Operations organization's elite of ruthless killers.

An assassin. A murderer.

The contrast was so unimaginable at first that she had pressed deeper, desperate to uncover the secret that must lie behind it. Such behavior was not, _could_ not be natural to him. Something had triggered this. She had to discover what it was.

And now she knew, and the knowledge was almost more than she could bear.

After a very long time, there was the faint sound of movement. Ragged breathing told her that straightening up from that bent-back posture was costly, but when it was achieved there was another silence.

More movement, very quiet. After a minute or two she identified the shuffling sound as that of a man moving around her quarters on all fours. She heard him sniffing. From the direction of the doorway came the distinct sound of several long inhalations, followed by a small, gusty snort.

Footsteps went past. There was a long, low growl, aching with threat. Fortunately whoever it was did not hear; the sound of the footfalls faded into nothing. The growl faded with it.

There was a pause. Then he came back slowly across the room, with hesitations that probably indicated he was examining anything that caught his interest with the wary innocence of any animal in strange surroundings.

Finally he was close enough to touch. With an effort, she kept her hands loosely clasped in her lap. She did not open her eyes: to see him this way would have been an utter violation of his privacy, and more than he could have borne afterwards – if there was an afterwards in which he was capable of understanding anything.

He leaned over and began smelling her. Now he was so close, she could hear his thoughts again, but they were unlike anything she had ever encountered. Instead of being complex they had narrowed down to almost brutal simplicity: it was less like receiving choate thought than pulses of emotion associated with the concepts he identified.

 _*FearAngerTrappedCuriousFearCurious*_ , he felt.

She cleared her throat, preparatory to speaking – though what she could say, she had no idea – and he reared back from her, snarling. * _AttackAngerFearAngerAngerFear!*_

Speech was perhaps not the approach to use. With an enormous mental effort she tried to coalesce her own thoughts into the same primitive form, pushing them into the void in which he now existed. It was extraordinarily difficult, but she achieved something, though not nearly as fluent; she could only hope that he would receive it and listen. * _Safe…Friend…Trust.*_

The snarl died in his throat. He was silent for a moment, then gave a low, puzzled whine. * _No-tailTrustCuriousFear.*_

 _*Safe…Trust,*_ she managed. * _Harmless.*_ 'Harmless', after all, was probably a more comprehensive concept to his current thought processes than 'Friend'.

Very slowly he came back up to her; he had not retreated far, or else she would have lost the thread of connection. The faintest rumble of a warning growl vibrated from him as he began smelling her again. * _SoftHarmlessWeakEat?*_

T'Pol swallowed. * _FemaleNotEat.*_

Unfortunately, the idea that she was female immediately diverted his interest in a most inappropriate direction. She supposed wryly that in view of the fact that on one occasion she had pursued him with her unwanted sexual approaches, this was only 'tit for tat'. However, she resisted firmly, physically as well as mentally: * _FemaleNotMate.*_

He was clearly disappointed. The small, distant part of her mind that had of necessity remained separate from the experience reflected that there was something quite surreal in having the ship's tactical officer licking her face and whining. However, the sharp aggression of his thought patterns had subsided into gentleness. * _AlphaProtectFemale*_ came on a strong pulse, but it carried overtones of a wish to reassure.

 _*FemaleTouchAlpha?*_ she projected.

 _*WillingHappySafe.*_

Nevertheless she was careful to keep her movements slow and gentle, so as not to startle him.

His hair was soft; illogically, she had thought it would be coarse, like that of a sehlat. As soon as the tips of her fingers touched his face, she saw what he saw: a world of green, lush and exotic. * _HomeSafe,*_ he sent.

This was extremely strange. Although she had never visited England, the scenery did not seem to correspond to what she imagined a country on those latitudes would look like. Moreover, the term _alpha_ suggested a position of dominance in a pack, and she did not think that Great Britain still had pack-oriented predators of the _Canidae_ family at large.

Slowly, she changed position. Keeping her fingers touching his skin, she got herself on to all fours beside him. He nuzzled against her, and she felt the contentment coming off him in long, slow waves: * _NotAloneSafeAlphaProtectFemale.*_

 _*FemaleWantAlpha.*_ Her mental touch was hardly more than a whisper.

He did not question this sudden change of heart. With a whimper of eagerness he put a foreleg – his arm – across her back.

 _*AlphaTrustFemale,*_ she went on quietly. Using the arm that had been supporting her upper half, she took hold of his tracksuit top and pulled it off him. She felt his puzzlement and disquiet, but he submitted. The rest of his clothes followed, and then so did her own.

It took all of her self-control to keep her eyes tightly shut. The urge to open them came not from prurient curiosity, for she felt none, but from the immediacy of his presence. It conjured up far too many and too vivid memories, and all of them were of a fair-haired man who was as unlike this one as chalk from cheese. It was vital that she keep that particular avenue of thought closed too, because should one wisp of this situation leak through the bond, the damage it would cause would be irreparable.

 _*AlphaWantingMateFemale.*_ She was kneeling upright, and her posture perplexed him; he was pushing against her, trying gently to nudge her back onto all fours.

 _*AlphaTrustFemale.*_ Instead of complying, she put her hands beneath his armpits and lifted him. Still bewildered, but obedient, he rested his 'paws' on her shoulders. She could feel his puzzled gaze on her, and he leaned forward and licked her nose.

 _*WantingMate,*_ he repeated.

 _*AlphaFeel.*_ She placed her left hand on his face and let her fingertips follow its contours, sharing the sensation with him. Then she tracked them down his neck, across his shoulders and chest, tracing the smooth skin and sharply-defined musculature, letting each sensation build a picture in his mind. Not the picture that she could see clearly in her mind's eye, of a large canine creature with long silky fur, but of a naked human male.

Trust was ingrained in him towards her. She was his mate, his _Dorcha_. But fear began to build inside his bewilderment, and a sudden tremor shook his body.

 _*NotFeel!MateDorcha!*_ He lunged in panic, trying to subdue her, trying to force her into position. * _NotThink!NotFeel!Mate!*_

 _*FeelFemaleNotDorcha!*_ She grappled with him. Bare skin slid against bare skin. The pulses of emotion pounding into her brain now were as much terror as lust, as he fought down the realization of what his senses were telling him.

He bit down on her shoulder, but a second later, with a wail of anguish, he tried to pull back. Her breasts were pressed against his chest. * _DorchaNo-Tail!*_

 _*AlphaNo-Tail!*_ Her arms were locked around his body. He could not get away from her, however desperately he struggled. Moments later they toppled over, but she still would not permit him to escape. Even the pitiful animal noises of distress he made did not stop her from clamping her hand again over his psi points; for his sake, she could not afford pity.

The state of his mind was now absolutely appalling. It was mostly primal fear, riven with memories of pain and ravenous hunger. The agony of a mangled right wrist flared like a white-hot light in her brain even as he squealed and pulled his arm away from her.

 _*HungerPainDieFearPainKillObeyEatLiveHungerPainFearDieObeyEatKILL!*_

Her mouth was full of fur and hot blood. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and her mind was swamped with anguish and triumph as she experienced the precise moment when his human reasoning had collapsed. The lesson had been learned.

 _Obey and live!_

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	4. Chapter 4

T'Pol stared down at the unconscious man sprawled on the floor of her cabin, and sighed deeply.

It was not a recommended medical treatment to use a neck pinch to render a patient unconscious, but the lieutenant had been suffering such mental trauma that she had felt she had no choice.

She had released her control of his mind, but to her horror he had not emerged from the hallucination. It had been approaching the point where she felt that he might well suffer irreversible damage if it continued. At least the brief period of enforced oblivion would allow his neurotransmitters to begin normalizing, and alleviate the tremendous stress that was being inflicted on his whole nervous system.

At this point it was undoubtedly her duty to inform Phlox; if truth were told, she should have done so long ago. However, Lieutenant Reed had been absolutely emphatic that the doctor was not to be involved. His consent was conditional on this being private between the two of them, and to bypass that consent – even in his best interest – was a step she hesitated to take. He had been in absolute earnest when he had said that if Phlox was involved he would not proceed; there was really no way to interpret that as allowing any leeway whatsoever. She was quite sure that if it was a choice between remaining as he was now and having his explicit instructions flouted he would infinitely prefer the former.

Medically speaking, however, it was quite possibly his best, if not only, chance of recovery. That the ship's CMO would be extremely disturbed and angry that such an invasive procedure had been carried out without either his knowledge or supervision was inevitable, but he would certainly have drugs that would alleviate the patient's distress and allow his brain to recuperate. Whether he would accept that she had been right to attempt this was another matter, but Vulcan mental procedures were a strictly kept secret. He would not have been able to perform this himself, and it was something that the lieutenant had requested her to do, accepting the very real risks that he was running by doing so.

It was unlikely in the extreme that simply allowing him to wake naturally would result in him returning to normal; to all appearances he was trapped in his appalling delusion. The likelihood was that he would return to his previous state, and once more become unstable and dangerous. Human psychiatrists would attach the label 'insane' to him, and by their measures they would be correct. She had deliberately forced him to regress to this state; once in it, he would have no means of understanding that he was living in an induced reality.

Ideally, he should now be sedated and taken to Vulcan, for treatment in the monastery there. Maybe the healers could perform some ritual such as the Fullara, to help him deal with the trauma. Before the monastery at P'Jem had been violated, that had been the center for such healing, but since _Enterprise_ had been involved in uncovering the scandalous misuse of a holy place as a cover base for spying on the Andorians, activity there had been relocated to Vulcan and the monastery at Mount Seleya. It was questionable whether the High Command would be happy about a human and a Starfleet officer being brought there; it was possible that they would even refuse to treat him; and it was unthinkable that either Starfleet, Captain Archer or the lieutenant himself would consent to his condition being made public knowledge – and quite possibly the subject of public ridicule. It was all too easy to imagine a number of Vulcans of her acquaintance imperfectly concealing smiles of derision at the Human whose inferior brain was in such a risible condition. Moreover, it was unlikely that the people who had inflicted this on him in the first place would allow their actions to become known, with all the scandal that would inevitably follow. She was under no illusions as to their willingness, and indeed determination, to do whatever might be necessary to preserve this terrible secret.

Life as an agent in the V'Shar had left T'Pol with few illusions. Nevertheless, even she was shocked to the core by the utter callousness of what had been done to Malcolm Reed. She did not know by what process it had been carried out, but somehow he had been traumatized into believing he was an animal – an animal whose survival depended on obedience. This belief had welded itself into his subconscious. Obedience, now, was for him not so much a choice as a compulsion. He might not even remember all of the details of what had happened to him; the brain is sometimes adept at forgetting what it cannot bear to remember. But it had left him maimed as surely as if the people who had done this to him had damaged his hearing or his eyesight for their own dark purposes.

Certainly it was not an irresistible compulsion. He had, after all, declined to speak to Agent Harris shortly after the incident in which his divided loyalties had been exposed – the captain had ordered that all incoming transmissions from that source should be monitored and recorded, and had been reassured by Reed's prompt refusal to enter into any conversation with his former handler. Nevertheless, for it to have driven him to act even once in a way so profoundly contrary to everything his crewmates had ever seen in him was the gravest evidence that it was an extremely dangerous flaw that might yet be exploited. The fact that he had chosen to expose himself to the terrible risk of this procedure now was further proof (if proof were needed) that he himself saw it in that light. And now, understanding what he had been – what he had been forced to _become_ – she understood all too well the fear that gripped him at the thought that his old handler could still exert influence over him. For who knew how deeply that influence could go, and what else he might be called on to do?

She sat down on the floor opposite him. She had placed him in the recovery position and covered him with a blanket, and at first glance it appeared that he was merely sleeping. The surprisingly long dark fans of his eyelashes lay motionless. The shock produced by a neck pinch was equivalent to temporary sedation, and so for the first period of unconsciousness he would not dream. Later, as it moved into normal sleep, his brain would resume its cycle of activity preceding reawakening. It was hard to imagine, looking down at him, that he would not wake as the highly intelligent and self-disciplined officer she had known and trusted for so long. Tragically, however, it was all too likely that he would wake behaving as the sehlat-creature he believed himself to be, and events take on an inevitable momentum.

He had, indeed, been a damaged and a deeply dangerous man in the past, but somehow he had clawed his way out of the abyss and reshaped himself. He had earned his place aboard _Enterprise_ and served there faithfully. Over all the years she had never seen any evidence of him as other than a loyal and devoted servant to the ship, and the agony it had cost him to allow her to force access to his memories was proof that he regarded that period of his past with shame and horror. It would be a rank injustice for him to lose not only his post and his career but even his reason in such a way.

There had to be some way to reach him. Some way to counteract, to _countermand_ the conditioning he had received.

She stood up quickly, pulled on her clothes, and moved to the comm station on her wall. "T'Pol to Captain Archer," she said, toggling the call button.

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	5. Chapter 5

"Archer."

"Captain. Please will you join me in my quarters as a matter of urgency – I require your assistance."

To do him justice, he did not waste time in asking for explanations. With a terse, "I'll be there," he closed the comm link.

When the buzzer sounded from outside, she did not immediately admit him. Instead she went out into the corridor with him, closing the door behind her before he could look in.

A glance assured her that the corridor was empty; they could speak without being overheard.

"Sir," she said without preamble, "before I allow you inside my quarters, I must ask for your promise that anything you see, or anything that happens there, will remain totally confidential between the two of us."

His eyebrows rose. She was pleased that he took time for thought; it was, after all, a grave thing to promise, and if he did so he would keep his word.

"I guess if you think it's necessary, I can go along with that," he replied finally. "Subject to my responsibilities to Starfleet and the ship, of course."

T'Pol paused at that. "You may feel that there may be … an area of conflict with the former," she admitted. "But I will guarantee that there is no danger to the ship."

He hesitated for a while longer, studying her. As the captain of a starship, responsible to the hierarchy who had invested him with that authority, he could not and should not lightly embrace the concept of possibly being asked to act contrary to their interest. Nevertheless, it seemed that the mutual trust that their travels together had built up was enough to bring his slow nod of acceptance.

She triggered the door control.

He followed her in.

Presumably he was expecting to see something out of the ordinary, but nevertheless he came to an abrupt halt when he saw Lieutenant Reed lying naked on the floor, covered only by a blanket.

"Malcolm?" In a moment he was crouching beside the unconscious officer, touching his face gently. "T'Pol – what's happened to him? Have you called Phlox?"

"For the present, Captain, it is unnecessary," she replied, kneeling beside him. " _I_ did this to Mister Reed." She saw his shocked expression, and went on swiftly, "We have been attempting to deal with his conditioning, and unfortunately he became distressed – so distressed that I was unable to wake him from the induced hallucination, and he was in danger of sustaining long-term neurological damage. I therefore prevented that from happening."

"So is there anything I can do to help?"

She sighed. This was going to be extremely difficult to explain; he would probably want to know so much more than she had actually found out. "I have discovered the method by which Section 31 conditioned him to obedience to their commands."

"You have?" He visibly braced himself.

"I am as yet unable to determine exactly where or how this was carried out," the Vulcan continued, "but he appears to have been subjected to the delusion that he was an animal – a canine of some kind, I believe. He was tortured and starved. Eventually he was forced to the understanding that the only way to survive was to surrender his will to that of a superior. In essence, obedience and survival became inextricably interdependent in his mind. To disobey was to die."

"He still _can_ disobey," Archer argued. "He took part in that mutiny against me in the Expanse."

"He obeyed you long past the stage of reasonable co-operation," she said simply. "In the end, only the clear evidence that the survival of both himself _and the ship_ was now in extreme jeopardy enabled him to act. Had he been uninfluenced by the Section's conditioning, matters would never have reached that stage. You should have been stopped long before that. The evidence was there in plain view that you were not functioning properly."

Illogically, he flushed. They both knew that his behavior had been heavily influenced by the hormones secreted by the Xindi Insectoids to promote nurturing responses towards the hatchlings in the nursery _Enterprise_ had found, but even though with his reasoning mind he could absolve himself of guilt for the way he'd endangered both his ship and his mission, an irrational guilt still lingered on that score.

Partly, perhaps, to deflect his thoughts from memories that must still be painful to him even now, he looked down again at his unconscious tactical officer. "How could they _do_ that to him?"

"Because it worked," she answered, her voice flat and hard. "And that is the sole criterion upon which any covert operations organization operates. The welfare of their personnel is a very secondary consideration. It was traumatic to him, and must have been extremely dangerous; I gained access to his memories of it. But it must have some benefit to the Section that outweighs the risk."

The lieutenant was recovering from his induced unconsciousness. A frown wrinkled his forehead, and he whimpered low in his throat.

"They should be prosecuted," the captain said, his own voice almost vibrating with anger. "Perhaps he'll agree to give a statement, and with your corroboration–"

"It would never reach a tribunal," she told him with certainty. "There is far too much at stake for that. He told me himself that if his superiors learned that Phlox had any knowledge of what had been done to him, the doctor would not survive. I imagine the same would apply to anyone else they suspected of an intention to bring them to justice. You included." She did not trouble to include herself; that was a foregone conclusion.

"Well. That's something that can wait." His grim tone promised that it wouldn't be forever. "As for Malcolm here… he'll be okay when he wakes up, won't he?"

Heavy-hearted with the knowledge of her own guilt in the matter, she shook her head, and explained how she had deliberately made Reed regress to the enforced delusional state in which he had been coerced into surrender. "He was suffering extreme pain and hunger, and was probably in the grip of fever," she continued. "If I am any judge, he was close to death. But unfortunately, he has been so traumatized by revisiting that state that his mind seems to be resisting any further manipulation. Effectively, he is trapped in that belief."

"For _good?_ " the captain asked in incredulous dismay. "Can't you… heck, we've got to call Phlox!"

"No, sir." She stopped him as he reached for the comm button. "Mister Reed specifically stated that Doctor Phlox should not be involved in any way. It was his sole condition for attempting this treatment. He accepted the risk for himself, but not for anyone else."

His hand dropped to his side. He stared helplessly at his stricken tactical officer. "You mean – he's going to _stay_ like this? For _good?_ Isn't there _anything_ we can do for him?"

"There is something we can try." She exhaled. "When he was in that delusion he experienced nothing but fear and suffering. But if we can alter his memories, effectively modify his 'programming' … it might be the way out he needs." She paused, as a thought came to her. That inability to emerge from his hallucination might actually not be as involuntary as she'd imagined.

What if the lieutenant _himself_ had somehow recognized an opportunity, and was holding on in the desperate hope that she could take advantage of it?

Logically, there was no reason why he should be trapped by the dream-state; no reason why he should still be reliving that appalling experience. As soon as she understood what she had seen happen, she had let go her control. He should have come back to himself – very badly shaken, no doubt, and probably in need of assistance to recover his mental stability, but awake and aware. Instead of which he had remained delusional. He had continued instead to gorge on warm raw flesh, and her stomach churned at how vivid the memory had been. Her attempt to rouse him by force had resulted in almost hysterical resistance, and that had been the point at which she had taken the decision to relieve the pressure on his mind by the only means available to her.

"Yes," she murmured, almost to herself, as the threads of an idea began to coalesce. "That could be the way…"

She took a moment for thought. Any course of action as risky as this should be considered very carefully before embarking on it. Then, "I am asking you to trust me, Captain." She took a deep breath. "As I am trusting you … not only on my behalf, but also on _his._ "

Archer's mouth twisted wryly, as though he was wondering just how far the lieutenant trusted him now; and probably whether, were Reed conscious and in his right mind, he would have concurred. "I guess we don't have any choice," he said heavily. "Tell me what you want me to do."

In as few words as possible she explained, and he slipped away quickly to fetch what was needed. Fortunately he returned in only a few minutes. By this time Reed was showing definite signs of reawakening.

She wished she was able to give the captain more definite guidance, but the memories she'd accessed were so jagged and inhuman that she had trouble interpreting them. Nevertheless, she was reasonably certain that she could take control of the lieutenant's waking mind and return it forcibly to the event on which everything else had hinged. And she needed to start _now._

Re-establishing the link was horrible. To find herself shackled again to all that desperation, that unreasoning savagery: the pain, the fury and despair, and the wild will to live….

The Englishman struggled back up to all fours, swaying as though the effort was all but beyond him. His right arm was tucked underneath him, and she felt the dull throb from its wrist coursing up through his shoulder.

As he raised his head, she heard the captain release a hiss at the sight of the twisted features that had in them so little of humanity. But she felt the gathering intention behind them. He did not see her, though he was directly in front of her. He saw food, and he must kill or die.

"Captain," she said in a whisper, holding that unearthly gray glare. "I believe that now would be a good time…"

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	6. Chapter 6

_Pain_.

He had forgotten how much pain.

The ever-present grinding throb of his right wrist, the continuous dull ache of the abused muscles in his spine, the smart of his battered knees and grazed paws, and above all – drowning them all out now with its constant howling – hunger.

He had to eat. His time was running out; he was going to die.

And this, quite clearly, was his last chance.

The wolf in front of him watched him intently. He was puzzled by the fact that her eyes were brown, not blue, but that didn't matter. She was vulnerable. She was food. She was going to die, and he was going to live. It was as simple as that.

The touch on his head just as he was about to launch himself at her throat scared him so badly he yowled and shrank away from the anticipated punishment, baring his teeth in fright.

There was another wolf beside him, a much bigger, male wolf. There was something in its jaws that smelled good: something that made the saliva run in his mouth.

He couldn't understand why the other wolf was patting him gently on the head, letting its paw run softly and repeatedly down the back of his neck. Ordinarily one wolf put a foreleg across another to establish dominance, or as a prelude to mating. Since he too was a dog wolf, this must be a dominance display, and it would be suicide to put up even a token show of resistance. He lowered his head in a display of abasement, trying to make himself appear small, weak and non-threatening; this animal was far too big and strong for him to tackle. * _NotEnemy! NotHurt!*_ He let the smallest breath of a puppy-whine escape, reinforcing his harmlessness.

It seemed to work. The paw was withdrawn. He was unsure whether this was a good sign or a bad one; it depended on whether his submission had been accepted. He waited for the beast to swallow that enticing mouthful and attack him.

It didn't. Instead, it brought its muzzle closer to him and gently proffered the food.

It was a trick. It had to be. He snarled with fear and cowered down as low as he could get to the floor without crushing his injured foreleg. * _HungryDieEatAfraidHungrySmellAfraidPainFoodHungry.*_ He had to kill. He had to eat. He had to obey.

Their muzzles touched. The edge of the meat brushed against his flinching mouth.

Almost against his will, his tongue shot out for a lightning lick, even as the sickening fear of retaliation dragged a terrified whine from him.

No retribution fell. The wolf remained where it was, its hazel eyes full of an emotion he couldn't read in his snatched sideways glances. Its paw began stroking him again.

Trembling with tension and fear, he gathered his courage and licked the meat again. The wolf was holding it very loosely between its teeth, and on a sudden mad surge of desperation he snatched the food into his own mouth and began trying to choke it down, turning his shoulder to take the brunt of the anticipated attack. He didn't dare chew it; it went down in lumps, almost untasted. The relief of taking nourishment, _any_ nourishment, was so great that for a few blessed seconds he was only conscious of the sensation of eating. Even his ruined paw had vanished from his awareness, and whatever payment his shoulder might take in the meantime would be worth it.

Nothing had happened. The stroking went on. And when he finally inched his head around to see what the situation was now, the other wolf had another piece of meat in its mouth.

Its ears were upright. It whined encouragingly. The paw patted between his shoulders.

He couldn't lower his own ears in submission, and had no tail to wag in tentative friendliness. He could only watch fearfully and keep his head low as he angled it in slowly and cautiously towards that beckoning, delicious meat.

This time he didn't snatch and turn away. He closed his teeth on the very edge of the steak and dared a glance at the wolf holding it.

It released the food at once. Its eyes blinked peaceably, as though it wasn't hungry.

He still turned away, but he didn't bolt this piece, though he was still rigid with tension. He held it down with his usable paw and tore manageable bits off it, and each moment in which he was allowed to eat in peace fed into the unwilling sense of trust that had begun to steal over him.

 _*FoodGoodEat!Safe?HungryGoodEat!*_

Then – the shocking thought stole over him: * _NotObeyEatLive?*_

His gaze darted around. The female was still sitting in front of him. He did not have to kill her. He did not have to obey. There was food. He would live.

The wolf beside him laid another piece of meat carefully on the floor beside him. After so long, his stomach had shrunk. It would not take much food to fill it; he was already starting to feel the pangs of hunger being replaced by those of indigestion. Nevertheless, he would not stop eating until he literally had to. Who knew when such an opportunity would come again?

Other, unfamiliar emotions were stirring in him. Very tentatively he licked the other wolf lightly on the muzzle, trying to convey his gratitude. It seemed surprised, and wiped its nose with its paw, but otherwise seemed to accept the gesture. At any rate it produced another piece of meat when he'd finished the third, and watched patiently while he ate that too.

The food was warm and heavy in his stomach. He was tired and full. He yawned and lay down.

The gully around him seemed dim and indistinct. The other wolf was still beside him, however, and he felt protected and at peace. He curled up and laid his head against one of his benefactor's paws. He was too tired to think and too full to care, though somewhere in him there was a dim realisation that there was an abyss into which he had not fallen, despite being intended to do so.

There was something not quite right about this, but nevertheless as sleep stole over him he was once again conscious of gratitude. A feeling that in itself was surprising, for there had been so little in his life for which he'd ever had cause to feel grateful. Survival was a matter of strength, not kindness. Or so someone had told him once, long ago….

He forgot whom. And when.

It no longer mattered, anyway.

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	7. Chapter 7

Captain Archer finally felt as though he could draw breath.

With movements that were as slow and stealthy as he could make them, he rose to his feet. The movement did not disturb the officer who was curled up fast asleep on the deck-plating in front of him, his face almost gaunt with exhaustion.

He'd come out into space prepared, even hoping, to see things beyond the imagination. He'd never dreamed of seeing them at such close quarters, or in such appalling detail. He'd never expected to hate another human being with such visceral hatred as he now did Harris, who had brought a decent man down to this.

T'Pol was sitting in front of the sleeping lieutenant. Her head was bowed into her hands, but as he rose she lifted it. Her face too was haggard.

"Did it work?" he whispered. He was almost afraid to break the silence.

"I don't know." Her tone was flat and dull with weariness. "We shall have to wait. I would not dare to wake him now, even if it were possible. He needs to sleep until he wakes of his own accord."

"No – no, of course not." He looked down. It seemed the final indignity to have the man spend the night on the comfortless floor, after all he'd suffered. "Wait here a minute."

It was the work of only a few minutes to slip along to the gymnasium. The mats that were used during physical exercise periods were rolled up tidily in a corner; he selected the thickest and dragged it out of the door and down the corridor. Fortunately nobody passed him, but if they had he'd just have stared them down; god damn it, he was the captain, and if he wanted to take one of the gym mats for a walk, nobody could forbid him.

T'Pol had not moved when he returned. She was looking down at Malcolm, and for a moment Jon wondered at the strange _pietà._ But when he deposited the mat carefully on the floor, she lifted the unconscious officer with no more than dutiful care, wrapped once more in the blanket, and laid him down again without visible reluctance.

"T'Pol – I hadn't thought – do you _mind_ him staying here?" A belated question, perhaps, but one that had to be asked. After all, she wasn't in the habit of sharing her quarters, as far as he knew, and should it become common knowledge that Malcolm had stayed overnight in her cabin then only one conclusion would be drawn.

"His presence will be a minor inconvenience while I meditate." From somewhere she dredged up a ghost of the old ironic humor. "But I believe I will be able to cope."

"I'll come down first thing in the morning. And I'll bring him a change of clothes. I'll guess he'll need some time off duty, even if…." He trailed off, realizing guiltily that he hadn't even asked whether she was okay. If it had been any other member of his crew he'd have reached out, offering tactile comfort and reassurance as well as the gratitude she was owed; he was shy of touching her, however, for several reasons. "Did all this … How about you? It didn't…?"

"I will need to spend considerable time in meditation," she admitted. "As a matter of fact, it may be beneficial for me to spend the night meditating rather than sleeping."

"Then take tomorrow morning off, take whatever you need." He managed a smile that was sincere, if brief. "I appreciate what you did here, I really do."

"The time for thanks will be when we find out whether I have succeeded."

"That's not true." His tactile instincts winning out after all, Jon rested a hand briefly and gently on her shoulder, wondering as he had so often at the strength and resilience in that petite frame. "Even if it doesn't work out, you tried your best."

"I had no idea." How tired – no, _exhausted_ – she must be, to let this vulnerability show as she looked up at him. The only time he'd seen it before was when they were in pursuit of Menos, the renegade Vulcan agent whom it was her duty to apprehend. Then, it had spilled out as guilt for her killing of his accomplice, Jossen, some years earlier. "If I had known, I would never have tried this. If he spends the rest of his life insane, it will be my fault."

"Did _he_ know how dangerous it might be?" he asked carefully.

For a moment he thought she wasn't going to answer. She turned away and sat – or rather slumped – down on her bunk. Finally, in a low voice, "He probably knew it better than I did."

"So I'm sure he wouldn't blame you that it hadn't worked out. He's a grown man, T'Pol. He took the chance of his own free will." The cold weight of his own guilt in the matter settled around his shoulders. It had been his orders that had driven Malcolm to try this dangerous gamble; his decision that unless the lieutenant succeeded in breaking his conditioning, he was no longer welcome on the ship.

At the time, it had seemed no more than sensible. With the clarity of hindsight, he wondered now just how much the urge to make Reed suffer had been a factor in his decision-making process. He knew – he couldn't help but know, having seen proof after proof of it – that the Brit loved _Enterprise_ almost as much as he did. Now he wondered whether he'd wanted him to fail, wanted him to be hurt as he himself had been hurt. Whether in his heart of hearts he'd wanted to get shot of him, and seized this as a chance to do so without any finger of blame pointing to himself: _I gave him a chance and he just wasn't up to the job._

So now this was where his cleverness and spite had probably gotten them all: his XO carrying a burden she would never forgive herself for, _Enterprise_ without the best tactical officer in the Fleet, and a good man in a lunatic asylum.

It was all he could do not to shudder as that realization hit him. And a second followed it: was he, in fact, fit to be captain of a starship at all?

T'Pol was speaking; he hadn't even heard her. "Captain," she said again. "You must not blame yourself for this. You were not responsible."

It was good of her to say so, but he knew better. On board ship, _the buck stops here._ And he'd known this was going on but had never even bothered to ask about the risks. Had never even thought about how dangerous it would be to mess around with the kind of conditioning that must have been used to make a traitor out of a man like Reed.

If Harris was to blame, then how much more blameworthy was he?

He'd promised secrecy, but no amount of secrecy would cover this up. Only collusion in endless lies between him and his First Officer could possibly conceal what had happened. Maybe he deserved the disgrace that would follow, but did she?

At some point while he stared blindly into some damned ugly facts, she must have moved. Her hand came to rest lightly on his arm, making him jump. "Captain. You could not have kept a suspect officer on board. It was Mister Reed's own decision to take this risk, and he took it knowingly and willingly. I do not believe for a moment that you deliberately wished him harm."

"He took a _risk._ " The anguish spilled out of him. "When in hell did he ever ask anyone else to take a risk? Hell, he spent most of his life here trying to _stop_ me taking risks, and most of the time I didn't even listen to him. The only person he ever wanted to put in danger was himself, to protect the rest of us, and now he … and all because I…." His breathing was getting ragged. He couldn't deal with this, couldn't handle the fact that he'd forced a member of his crew into something that had destroyed their sanity. The memories were branded on his brain of his tactical officer cowering away from him on all fours and then snatching food and bolting it like a starving animal. Malcolm had actually _lived_ through that experience, had been put through it with deliberate and calculating cruelty, and now – thanks to the man who was supposed to protect him – he'd been hurled right back into it again. And if the gamble didn't pay off (and there had been no sign of that when he fell asleep curled up on the deck plating) that was where he would stay for the rest of his wretched existence.

"You gave him a chance and he took it," she said quietly. "He would not blame you. He _did_ not blame you. He said so."

"No. _I_ blame me, T'Pol. Because I know I shouldn't have let the two of you go into with this without asking a whole load more questions than I did. I just passed it to you and left you to get on with it. Malcolm wasn't your problem, T'Pol. He was _mine_. And I failed him even worse than he failed me." He caught the rising note in his voice, and made a conscious effort to get himself back under control. "I'm sorry. This is … is something I'm going to have to think about. Long and hard. And… And his parents … what am I supposed to say to them?"

"Jonathan." Her calling him by his given name startled him. "You are not a vindictive man. I said that I believed I could do this and you believed me. We still do not know if I was wrong. At least wait until the morning."

He nodded shakily, running a hand through his hair. He was disturbing her too, keeping her away from her meditation. Whether he'd get any sleep after all this was a different question, but he should at least try. If the worst came to the worst, he'd go to Sickbay to get something to help him … and then he thought of having to tell Phlox what had happened, and his soul cringed away from what the Denobulan would think of him.

 _Nothing you don't deserve,_ his conscience accused him.

Well. Phlox would have to know something of what had happened sooner or later, whatever the outcome; it might have a bearing on Reed's long-term mental well-being, and it was unthinkable that the doctor should not be informed at all. At a guess he'd be indignant, and he'd have every right to be, but in the last analysis this 'procedure' had been kept private at Malcolm's express insistence.

With a last glance at the still-sleeping officer on the gym mat, he bade T'Pol goodnight and left the cabin.

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	8. Chapter 8

It was getting towards the middle of Beta shift, and there weren't many people about. However, just as he turned the corner to his own quarters he saw Trip, who had apparently been pressing the chime beside his door but was just on the point of turning away.

Things were still somewhat strained between himself and his ex-Chief Engineer. As they were both now off duty they were wearing leisure clothes, but though Trip's T-shirt bore no other decoration than a surfing motif, Jon still seemed to see that alien patch on his left sleeve.

"I was wonderin' if _Enterprise_ was turnin' into some kind of _Marie Celeste_ ," the other man said, mustering an awkward smile. "Malcolm's not answerin' hails and you weren't here either. Anything goin' on that I should … no, cancel that." It was written all over his face: _I'm not one of your officers anymore. I don't have any right to know anything._

The captain pulled his own mouth into something approximating a smile in return. "Malcolm and I had some … some things that needed to get sorted. He's pretty tired now. I'd just let him sleep, if I were you."

Time had been when that kind of statement would have drawn forth a ribald riposte. Now, the absence of so much as a flicker of amusement was another burden on Jon's already aching shoulders.

The friendship between the two of them went way back, had its foundations before _Enterprise_ 's keel had been laid. It had held steady through everything until that damned encounter with the Vissians, and he'd have sworn it could stand against anything, but it hadn't stood against the calamity that had resulted. Two factors – his own absence from his ship, plus Trip's own fatally misguided sense of chivalry, both harmless in themselves but catastrophic in combination – had led to the suicide of a Vissian cogenitor and the rupture of a potential alliance that could have had enormous benefits for mankind.

It was unthinkable that such an incident wouldn't affect even the most deep-rooted of friendships. For some time afterwards they'd treated each other with a formality that did nothing to hide or heal their mutual misery. The happy evenings with beer and televised water-polo were a thing of the past; when basketball tournaments were staged in which Trip would be taking part, Jon pleaded the pressures of paperwork. Neither of them had been willing to make the first move to heal the rupture. Maybe they'd both been hoping that somehow things would work themselves back to normal over the everyday business of the voyage.

And then there had come the Xindi. The death of Trip's baby sister had changed him into a bitter, vengeful man, channeling his grief into the desire to hit back at those who had done this dreadful thing. Over the course of the hunt for the weapon the gulf between them had closed perforce, becoming a thing that would have to wait its time, but it hadn't gone away. It probably never would go away, not completely – but even so, Trip's sudden request for a transfer to _Columbia_ some months after the resumption of their voyage of exploration had come as a hammer-blow. They'd never gotten things sorted out between them and now, it seemed, they never would. Trip wouldn't even tell him the reason for the request; maybe, somehow, if he'd just been honest enough to do that they could have sorted at least some of their differences.

But it was not to be. And now, witnessing the engineer's abrupt withdrawal from the friendly informality which had once been second nature to him, Jon found himself wondering all over again if he'd failed this officer as badly as he'd failed the one he'd left unconscious back in T'Pol's quarters. His once easy confidence in himself as the ship's captain was no longer the unthinking thing it had been. In hindsight, on too many occasions he'd acted like an arrogant fool – and the fact that the ship had survived had been more due to the wisdom and courage of her officers and crew than to her captain.

What would Trip think if he knew what had happened tonight? He and Malcolm had become close friends over the course of their voyage, a friendship that seemed somehow to have survived more or less intact in spite of the stresses and strains imposed on it by the Expanse and the whole Xindi thing. That, no doubt, was why he'd been trying to page him; probably with some thought that the two of them could share a few beers before Trip returned to _Columbia._

Had he come here in search of his missing buddy, or… As the ship's acting Chief Engineer, he could have accessed the computer to find out where Reed was if he'd been seriously worried. So it couldn't be that, not entirely. Maybe he'd thought Malcolm and he were sharing a few beers – the thought would have brought a wry smile to Jon's face if the circumstances had been different. It was hard to imagine a less comfortable situation than _that_ one would be, for himself or for his unfortunate tactical officer. The sundering of the friendship with his old comrade had left a void, but Reed wasn't the man to fill it.

So, he hadn't come here expecting to find Malcolm. What other reason could have brought him? It wasn't like he and his ex-captain were exactly on chatting terms.

A silence had fallen. Jon and Trip stared at each other through it, while too many things that needed to be said went unsaid yet again.

Finally, the younger man turned away with a small, helpless gesture of one hand. "I just wanted … aw, forget it. It's nothing."

"No." Jon stepped forward almost involuntarily, thrusting out one arm, though he didn't touch. "Trip, don't. Just _talk_ to me."

A strained smile, one that held a measure of bitterness. "Not sure what there is to talk about, Cap'n."

Another couple of steps closed the gap between them. Somewhat to Jon's surprise, Trip didn't back away, but his look said all too plainly that he didn't welcome the gesture either.

"We can't talk out here. Come into my cabin. Please. Just for a couple of minutes." He wanted to say _You owe me that much_ , but he wasn't sure it was true.

The engineer hesitated for a long moment; then he shrugged. It wasn't obvious whether this was because he didn't think it could do any harm, or whether he just didn't give a damn. But either way, when the captain touched the door control he followed him inside.

Porthos alone was unaffected by the tension. He was already waiting just inside the door, evidently alerted by the sound of voices outside. He greeted the visitor with his tail wagging so hard that his entire hindquarters wagged with it.

"Hey, boy, did you miss me, huh?" Trip went down on one knee, cupping the little dog's head in his hands while Porthos uttered ecstatic little growls of excited welcome and did his best to lick his face.

 _He sure as hell wasn't the only one._ But Jon couldn't say that. In silence he went to the fixture where he kept his stash of bourbon, and took out two glasses. He couldn't remember the last time it had been two. Lately it had just been one, and he'd noticed too late how often it was happening that he'd found refuge at the bottom of a glass.

Trip accepted a glass with a couple of fingers of bourbon in it, and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed.

Jon sat down as well, keeping a distance between them. Maybe Trip had been right, and there really was nothing to say, for the silence stretched out painfully, broken only by interested canine snuffling as the dog explored the smells on the newcomer's clothes.

"So we're headed for the Berengarius system," the other man said at last, awkwardly, pulling Porthos's ears gently as the dog laid his head on his knees.

"Checking it out for the site of a new starbase." There was another silence, while probably both of them tried to think of things that could be said about establishing a new starbase.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all." Trip tossed back the bourbon and stood. "Cap'n, I'm guessin' once _Columbia_ 's officially launched they'll arrange a rendezvous to take me off. I'll keep out of your way as much as I can till then."

"Trip, I'm sorry about Charles."

The words stopped the engineer in his tracks. For a long minute he just stared at the door, and then he turned around and subjected his ex-captain to a long, hostile stare. "Well, it took you long enough to get around to that."

There were enough justifications he could have produced, excuses he could have made, but that didn't matter here. "I know."

"So. Sorry for what?" Trip inquired, leaning against the door and folding his arms. "Sorry for refusin' a plea for asylum because you didn't want to upset your new buddy? Sorry the poor sap you sent back to be a _pet_ decided they didn't want to put up with that kind of life? Sorry you offloaded the whole damn thing on to me? Because I'm not pretendin' I wasn't in the wrong doin' what I did, and god knows I've wished every day since I'd had the sense to stay out of it – because if I had, Charles would still be alive. But you weren't any goddamn saint either. Charles' death was down to both of us, Jon. Not just me.

"I've thought about it a lot since then. About what you said … and what you did. I understand all about the non-interference thing. But 'We can't save humanity without holdin' on to what makes us human'… that's what you said to T'Pol, wasn't it? But 'far as I understand it, humans, the _best_ humans, don't just turn their heads and look the other way when they see injustice. What the Vissians did to their cogenitors wasn't just a 'social convention', it was _wrong._ Just plain _wrong._

"Yeah. You were right. I didn't have any right to interfere and I went about it all the wrong way. But we sure as heck didn't have the right to just _accept_ it, like nobody was gettin' harmed. We could have at least _said_ something. But you didn't want to, just like you didn't want to admit Charles deserved asylum, because you just didn't wanna rock the boat. You didn't make a moral judgment, Jon; that was a political call, plain and simple."

 _Half of being a starship captain's_ about _making political calls, Trip. How the heck do you think I've gotten us to the stage where we can broker deals between the Andorians and the Tellarites and the Vulcans without being a politician?_ But hiding behind that retort would have achieved nothing; nothing, that is, except Trip's immediate exit. And in a way it was a relief, to have this out in the open between them at last. Even if it achieved nothing except washing out the wound.

"I guess that goes to show I'm not one of the 'best' humans, then," he said at last, in a low voice.

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Trip shouted, his eyes blazing. "You think the people on this ship would've followed just _anyone_ into the Expanse? You're one in a million, Jon. The only reason we succeeded was because of you. If I'd been in the big chair, Earth 'd be a pile of rubble by now.

"You had some terrible choices to make along the way, and let's be honest, you made some crap calls as well as a load of great ones. Goes with the territory. But Charles asked you for help and you refused, even after you _knew_ how the Vissians treat their damned cogenitors. You didn't even talk to Drennik, try to get him onside. You just caved in. And when you found out it'd taken the only way out there was left, you blamed me." He took a breath; he was shaking, probably only partly with rage. "You didn't have to; I blamed myself, and I deserved it. But I was a fool for all the right reasons, and you were a bastard for all the wrong ones."

Jon nodded heavily. There was no point in denying it. "Was that why you decided to leave?" he asked.

The younger man laughed aloud, but there wasn't a shred of humor in it. "Maybe that was the start of it. The start of me startin' to understand you really were a starship captain before you were anything else."

"That's my _job_ , Trip."

"No, Jon. It doesn't have to be like that, not all the time." He lifted a hand, putting a stop to any protest. "I know. I know what the Expanse did to you, or at least I know as much as I can without actually standin' in your shoes and gettin' to give the orders I have to live with afterwards. And I know nobody could go through the things we did without bein' different, bein' affected. But we … we're your _crew_ , Jon. Once upon a time we were your _friends._ Now, seems like you don't even think to look around you or listen like you used to. Because I'm damn sure there was a time you'd have noticed what was goin' on under your nose. Even if we … even if we're not buddies anymore."

This accusation had started off harshly, but by the end the hurt was breaking through, unstoppable. It was typical of Trip that he blinked away tears, but made no pretense of hiding them.

Jon made no attempt to move. To try to offer comfort before he'd gotten a handle on what this was all about would be futile and, worse, insulting.

 _Going on under my nose?_ The words opened a hollow sense of dread and guilt in him. What had he missed, that he should have seen? When had he become so blind, so complacent, that he'd stopped watching what was going on around him?

Well. If he understood the situation at all, all the signs pointed to this being about some romantic crisis. Half of the problem, therefore, must be Trip. And …?

… Hoshi?

… Well, they'd always been friends. But somehow it had never seemed like more than big brother and little sister. If Jon had had to pick someone with whom his comm officer was likely to become involved, he'd have picked Travis every time.

His heart almost stopped. Malcolm. _Dear god,_ _don't let me have to do this to him, tell him what I've done this time._ The two of them had clearly enjoyed each other's company, even though they often bickered like an old married couple. But if there had been more to it than that, which he'd never in a million years have suspected, how long had it been going on? He'd always thought Trip was strictly heterosexual. As for Malcolm, the guy's sexual preferences were as much a secret as his past, but it had occasionally crossed Jon's mind that the Brit might be bi, if not homosexual. And it hadn't been difficult to notice that he'd become even more of a lone wolf than usual since Trip's departure for _Columbia_ ; on Movie Nights, he didn't even bother to show up, no matter how many explosions the plot contained.

His mind skipped frantically through other alternatives, all female and most of them attractive, if not available: Em Gomez for one, whose dark sultry eyes (not to mention her other attractions) probably featured in many of the crew's daydreams. Trip had a thing for brunettes; Natalie had been brunette. So had that Princess, what was the name, Kaitaama or something…

He shut his eyes. He'd had occasional suspicions that something might be going on between his XO and his Chief Engineer, and T'Pol had alluded a while ago to some kind of sexual 'incident' between them, but he'd put it down to just another of the sorry consequences of the Expanse. The whole idea of anything serious had been just so incredible that he'd succeeded in convincing himself that the evidence was just circumstantial, and could never bear up under any serious examination. And if he was utterly honest with himself, he hadn't wanted to look at it very closely; hadn't wanted it to point to the truth.

 _No. No. No._

When he opened them again, Trip had slid down the door and was slumped at the foot of it. His eyes were red-rimmed. "Guess the penny finally dropped, huh?"

"Oh, Trip." It was almost a groan. Talk about reaching for the unreachable star. And it evidently wasn't just a passing flirtation; true, the engineer enjoyed the company of women and could hardly be unaware that he was considered an attractive man, but the truth was that he was a romantic at heart. He was reaching an age in his life when the next woman he fell in love with would probably be the one he'd end up marrying.

And he'd fallen in love with a Vulcan.

To quote the man himself – _Ohhh, shiit._

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	9. Chapter 9

They talked long into the night, talked more freely than they had done in months.

At some point a couple of beers put in an appearance, and then a couple more, and finally Jon looked up from an account of an interview with Admiral Black to find that Trip had laid his head down on the pillow and fallen fast asleep.

"Glad you thought it was that interesting," he said dryly. Not that he could blame him; there had been moments during the talk when he'd had difficulty keeping his own eyes open, for Black could drone on for hours, apparently finding the sound of his own voice enchanting. Normally he'd never even have referred to the man, but there had been enough of interest in the conversation to provide a safe topic now, and one that might gently lead Trip's mind away from his own problems – at least for a while.

Resigning himself to sharing the bed for the night with a pal who'd occupy rather more space in it than Porthos did, Jon took the opportunity to study his old buddy more closely. The marks of fatigue and strain were dug into the younger man's face even in sleep; sure, accomplishing what he'd done on board _Columbia_ had been a heck of an achievement, but mere tiredness could never have drawn those lines, or even smudged the shadows under his eyes. This was a deep exhaustion of the spirit more than of the body, and now that he knew the hopeless situation Trip was in, it was no wonder he was suffering.

But, hell – _T'Pol_ , of all women! Sure, she had a gorgeous body, and her small face was perfectly lovely; he'd fantasized sometimes about kissing her himself, and had to work hard to suppress envy of whatever that 'incident' had consisted of. But she was a _Vulcan_ , for chrissakes. If the old saying about opposites attracting applied – and it seemed in this case that it certainly did – then Trip could hardly have picked anyone more purely his polar opposite. Or, indeed, anyone less likely to return his feelings.

A one-off. That's what Jon had dismissed it as, because he couldn't imagine it being anything else, not between those two. It was far too sensitive a subject for him to delve for details, though his XO had told him that it had disrupted her relationship with Trip. That was too clearly proved now. Too clearly for anyone's comfort.

Jon heaved a sigh. His own situation was hardly enviable; though he and Erika were now no longer forbidden by Starfleet regulations to have a relationship, each of them being the commanding officer of a starship on active duty was hardly conducive to frequent romantic encounters. By comparison with Trip's plight, however, he had it positively rosy.

Since Trip's enforced return from _Columbia_ , Jon had wondered somewhat wistfully if it might occur to him that he'd made a bad call in leaving his old ship. Erika – a hard-headed realist, and an excellent judge of character – thought it was only a matter of time before her Chief Engineer realized he was on the wrong boat. She was making use of his talent in the meantime, and made no secret of it, but she undoubtedly didn't know the real reason behind Trip's flight from _Enterprise_. It seemed that it might yet be that she'd gotten the deal of the century after all.

It was late by now, and way past time he caught some sleep himself, but he was sick with heartache over Trip and guilt and worry about Malcolm; it didn't feel likely that he'd sleep anytime soon. He paid a last visit to the bathroom, where he stripped off and pulled on a pair of sleeping shorts, and lowered the lights before he carefully climbed back into his half of the bed. "If you snore, Trip, I'll send you to sleep with Porthos," he whispered.

There was no response.

So – sleep.

Yeah.

Good idea.

=/\=

He lay awake for half an hour, staring into the darkness. Then he threw back the blanket and got out of bed again.

This was totally selfish, and worse, stupid. Even though she'd said she probably wouldn't sleep, she'd definitely still be meditating, and wouldn't need him butting in disturbing her. And his alarm clock was blunt about how few hours now remained before they all had to get up and report for duty on the Bridge; at this rate he'd be sleepwalking to his chair in the morning. He should be going down to Sickbay to get something to help him sleep, not pass on his damned problem to somebody else as well.

But he didn't go to Sickbay. He got dressed quickly and in silence, and his feet took him back to T'Pol's quarters, and he pressed the chime before he could tell himself what a heel he was being.

She answered the chime immediately. He couldn't tell from her voice whether she'd been asleep or not. When he asked to come in, there was the slightest pause before she said 'Certainly', but her tone was perfectly neutral.

For the second time that night she met him at the door. This time, however, she said nothing, but admitted him at once.

The gym mat took up a good portion of the available floor space near the door, but beyond it her cushion was positioned precisely in front of the low table where her meditation candle rested. The lights were low, but the soft light played on Malcolm, still asleep on the mat. In the intervening time, he'd rolled onto his back and one arm was upflung, half-bent; his face was turned towards that arm, so that his position appeared almost defensive, even sleep.

"He hasn't woken," she said in a low voice. "I would have called you immediately."

"I'm sure you would." His own was just as low. "But there's something else I want to talk about. I'm sorry if I'm intruding."

"It doesn't matter. Would you like some tea?"

Peppermint, he believed, was calming. And right now, he felt as though he'd take any calming influences he could get.

At her invitation, he sat down on her bunk. When she'd made the tea for both of them she carried the cushion over and sat on it in front of him, cross-legged. She'd changed her outfit; she was now wearing a long, loose turquoise robe with a line of gold lettering – probably Vulcan – down one shoulder. At a guess she'd showered too. He could smell her perfume, warm, exotic.

There was no way he knew of to ease into the subject. "T'Pol, I … I've spoken to Trip. About you and him. How he feels about you."

In the candlelight her face looked softer, younger. Nevertheless she kept her poise. "He was not to blame for what happened, Captain. It was I who made the first approach. I did not realize how he would be affected by it, and I regret the effect this has had on him."

Well, that didn't come as any surprise in one way. Whatever Trip felt, he'd never have acted on it – not without a whole lot of absolutely unmistakable encouragement, and it was somehow unlikely that the Vulcan database would have been all that forthcoming on the subtle art of Human sexual dalliance. In another, however, it was beyond surprising – it was out on the far horizons of 'jaw-dropping'. Why, above all the available Humans on board, she should have singled out Trip Tucker, her absolute antithesis, was a mystery that he'd probably never figure out the answer to; he'd pigeonholed it eventually as the Vulcan equivalent of one of those damned 'anomalies' that peppered the Expanse, and now it was clear that it had been as destructive to the harmony of his crew as the real things were to the structure of his ship.

Still, the bottom line was that 'who started it' wasn't what he'd come here to talk about. And despite what she evidently thought, he hadn't come here to launch an investigation into a breach of the regulations.

Nor, indeed, to look too closely into an ache that had opened up very deep inside him.

"He loves you, T'Pol," he said quietly.

For a moment she didn't reply. Then, finally, "That is … regrettable."

Clearly, she wasn't surprised.

"I … realize this isn't something Vulcans go in for much. And I also realize it's something that's bound to cause a lot of problems. You and he –" He summoned up a smile from somewhere – "well, 'East and West' doesn't come anywhere near it. As a matter of fact, when you told me about it I was just surprised it ever got going at all.

"Not that that's anything to do with me, of course," he added hurriedly, in case she thought he was prying for the details – which he most emphatically wasn't, for more than one reason. "What I want to say is, just …" what the heck _did_ he want to say, considering he knew next to nothing about it? … "just that if the regulations are any part of the problem, they don't have to be. And if … Trip's a good man, T'Pol. They don't come any better."

Her beautiful brown eyes looked back at him calmly. He knew he was flushing with embarrassment at probing so intimate a subject, but she showed no sign of discomfiture.

"I know that he is a good man," she said at last. "But he is not Vulcan and I am not Human. What happened, should not have happened. For his sake."

"And how about for yours?"

"I think I have done enough damage to Commander Tucker."

"Have you told him that?"

"I do not perceive in what way discussing the situation would improve it."

Jon grinned wryly. "But you're not dealing with a Vulcan, are you? T'Pol, from Trip's point of view, not talking things through makes them worse, not better. Humans aren't good at dealing with things they don't understand. He didn't say a whole lot, but I sure got the impression he was incredibly upset about the whole thing.

"If you really feel there's no chance you two could make a go of it, well, I guess you know best. But what I _do_ know is that he needs some kind of closure. And the only person who could provide that for him is you."

"I was under the impression that his departure for _Columbia_ came into that category."

He shook his head. "That was Trip running away from something he couldn't cope with. It was never going to solve anything for him. Maybe if you two just have a _talk_ , it may sort a few things out."

For the first time, he thought he caught a glimpse of uncertainty. "Do you think he will wish to talk with me? On one occasion he specifically said that 'Romeo and Juliet would have stood a better chance' than a relationship between the two of us."

"You haven't studied your Shakespeare. The only problem between Romeo and Juliet was the fact their families didn't get along. I'm not saying Starfleet and the High Command are exactly bosom buddies, but they're not exactly mortal enemies." He spoke a little dryly; events back on Vulcan were still in a state of considerable flux since the overthrow of V'Las and the discovery of the Kir'Shara, and he wasn't sure what her home planet's governing body now consisted of, or even what it should properly be called. "I think there's one thing you need to get ahold of about Humans, T'Pol: sometimes they say things not because they're true, but because they're actually hoping for them to be _contradicted._ "

She frowned. "And how does one establish when this is 'one of those times'?"

A shrug. "That's a tough call. Sometimes you only find out when the person gets angry when you don't."

"Humans are very difficult," she said severely, like he was personally responsible for it.

"I won't argue that, and I'm one myself."

There was a pause. The next question, when it came, was as cautious as it was inevitable. "Do you think that the observation about Romeo and Juliet might have been one of those times?"

Jon grinned. "Like I said, sometimes it's a tough call to know. But from what I know of Trip, I'd say it was more than possible."

"And that if I had contradicted him, he might not have applied for a transfer to _Columbia._ "

"I guess not."

Another pause. "The chances of a relationship between a Vulcan and a Human being successful must be regarded as remote."

"Almost as remote as the chances of the crew of a single starship finding the Xindi and managing to persuade them they'd made a mistake."

"That persuasion was down to the personality of one man."

"And the success of a relationship is down to the personality of two people – and how much both of them want to make it work."

She sipped at her mint tea and said nothing, but her gaze was abstracted.

There was more he could have said, but in his book that would fall well outside the bounds of authorized interference. Even as far as he'd already gone was probably much further than he should have, particularly given the fact that whether any of them liked it or not, fraternization was forbidden by Starfleet regulations. Still, on a professional level he wanted the best Chief Engineer in the business for _Enterprise_ , and on a personal level he still hoped that somehow things between him and Trip could be properly straightened out – something that was far less likely to happen if the two of them were serving on separate ships.

It had been difficult to refrain from saying as much to Trip, earlier on, but that was a right he felt he'd forfeited. He'd contented himself with trying to show that no grudges remained on his side, that it was still possible for the two of them to connect, even if it wasn't on the old, easy footing. Maybe, just maybe, if T'Pol came to the decision that he thought and hoped she was contemplating, his friend would rethink his decision to leave. That, however, was something he'd have to leave to fate, as little as he'd ever enjoyed that kind of resignation.

He'd just decided that it was time for him to leave and make the most of the couple of hours' sleep he'd get if he was lucky, when T'Pol turned her head sharply. He'd heard nothing, but then Vulcan hearing was more acute than the average Human's. Or maybe she'd employed a sense other than auditory.

"I believe that Lieutenant Reed is waking up," she said softly.

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	10. Chapter 10

There was no sign externally, at first.

They both knelt down beside the gym mat, watching its occupant. Malcolm was evidently in REM sleep; his eyelids fluttered. The index finger of his upflung hand twitched, so that Jon wondered who or what the target was, and whether they were still alive.

Perhaps half a minute later the gray eyes opened sharply. The lieutenant was facing the ceiling by this time, and a look of astonished alarm printed itself on his face as he found two people staring down at him.

For a splinter of time, Jon waited for it to become mindless fear or rage; waited for the body to respond to what could be nothing other than a threat.

Instead, it shifted instantaneously to the appalled expression of a reserved English officer who has woken up wearing nothing but a blanket in the presence of his captain and a senior female officer, and has no idea whatsoever how he's gotten into that situation.

In what seemed a purely reflex movement, Malcolm seized the blanket and pulled it up almost to his chin. The standard temperature of T'Pol's cabin being set rather higher than would be comfortable for the average Human, she'd only covered him to the waist. Evidently he didn't feel that this was nearly adequate for propriety when he was wearing Nothing Underneath It.

"S-Sir!" he stammered. "I– what–? I…"

"Easy, Malcolm." Jon laid a hand reassuringly on his shoulder, and tried to control the crazy grin of relief that wanted to break out on his own face. "Just rest. How are you feeling?"

The Brit wetted his lips while his eyes darted frantically around, plainly in the search for clues to where he was. "I'm fi–"

"I asked, _how are you feeling_ ," Jon interrupted, with a stern look.

Malcolm shot him a look of chastened gratitude. "I have a bit of a headache, sir," he admitted unwillingly.

The captain was by now reasonably fluent in Malcolmspeak. This statement translated as 'The two halves of my head feel like they're coming apart but I'm not going to admit it.'

"I have some tablets in my cabin," the lieutenant hurried on. "I'm sure if I can just take a couple I'll be absolutely fi–"

"Phlox will have the say on that," Jon told him unequivocally, ignoring the expression of crushed hope as yet another visit to Sickbay loomed.

"Subcommander, I – this is your cabin."

"I know." She gazed down at him calmly, her lips twitching ever so slightly.

Malcolm pressed a hand to his forehead, his expression bewildered; it seemed, however, that he was starting to remember what had happened to him. "I feel as if I've been asleep for hours. But I don't…. The – the mind-meld – I remember we started it – what happened?"

"You were right in that it proved traumatic, Lieutenant. The fact that you cannot remember it suggests that your brain deems it too dangerous for recollection, and that may be the safest path for all concerned."

Jon watched him absorb that information. Plainly it was unwelcome and troubling, as indeed it would be to him in the same situation, but sometimes Mother Nature really did know best. Nevertheless, it didn't escape him that the Brit was watching T'Pol with considerable unease, as though wondering exactly how much she'd discovered and what she thought about it. He himself was wondering much the same, and that would be the subject of the debriefing that would have to follow.

After a couple of moments Malcolm achieved a rather forced smile. "I take it my conduct wasn't 'in the best traditions of the Fleet', then. I only hope I didn't do anything particularly egregious." He touched the blanket. "Particularly in view of the fact that I somehow seem to have become singularly under-dressed for the occasion."

"You did nothing that was not entirely in keeping with the situation you found yourself in," T'Pol told him calmly. "As for your clothing – or lack of it – I had regard at all times to the dignity of a fellow-officer. There is no need for you to be concerned."

He nodded, accepting that readily and with obvious relief. It was another moment, however, before he was able to nerve himself to ask the question that clearly mattered most to him: "And … did it work?"

"In such a situation, Lieutenant, it is impossible to speak in absolutes. The captain and I were able to carry out a procedure which we hope and trust may have gone some way towards correcting your conditioning. Whether it will be completely successful, I cannot truthfully say, but on balance I would believe that you would represent a considerably less useful tool to your old handler in the future. As for whether that will be enough to allow you to remain on _Enterprise_ , that will be the captain's decision and he will doubtless notify you of it in due course when we have discussed this fully and he has given the matter due consideration."

Jon nodded too. He was already fairly sure which way his decision would fall, but it was still a serious one and he preferred to talk things over in private with his XO before making it; she, after all, would have had a far more intimate insight into how Reed's mind had reacted and how it might have been affected by what had happened.

"This 'procedure'." Malcolm paused, plainly choosing his words very carefully, and not without a rather anxious glance at his CO. "Obviously, I don't remember anything. I'd … I'd appreciate a debriefing on it at some point."

"I would be more than willing to discuss it with you, but at a more suitable time and when we both feel you are fully recovered and able to deal with it properly. At this present moment you need to visit Sickbay so that Doctor Phlox can examine you, and I will need to accompany you there to explain the situation. Then, you need to rest for at least twenty-four hours."

"Rest, as in not find ways to sneak work into your quarters," the captain interrupted. "If you don't think you'll be able to sleep, ask Phlox to help you out. And that's an order."

He was momentarily startled to see an unmistakably mischievous glint appear in Malcolm's eyes. "Is this one of the orders I can feel free to ignore now, sir?"

Jon's first instinct was to reply 'Only if you want to see the inside of your own brig again', but he realized just in time that that was far too sensitive a subject for joking. He compromised with "Only if you want to be put on report," and had the satisfaction of seeing an answering shy grin spread across his tactical officer's face.

"In that case, sir, perhaps I'd better get dressed. It may not be the best idea for me to be seen coming out of here wearing nothing but a blanket."

"That, Lieutenant, is the opinion of both of us."

 _Especially if one guy in particular just happens to be roaming the corridors_ , thought Jon.

In the circumstances it would undoubtedly be best for both of them to leave the cabin at the same time; one would certainly cause comment if he were seen, but it was unlikely that the most scurrilous gossip-monger on the ship would add two and one together and make five. So he finished his by-now cold peppermint tea and tried not to smile at the contortions Malcolm achieved in his efforts to make himself respectable again without dropping the blanket.

"Well, one of us has to report for duty later on this morning, so I guess we'd better call it a night." The required degree of respectability being finally achieved, Jon set down his empty cup.

"Sir, I'm sure I'll be–"

"I said, _one of us_ has to report for duty, Mister Reed."

"Sir." The Brit looked crushed again. Which was quite a feat, considering he already looked completely exhausted, as well he might.

"Come on, Malcolm. I'll see you and T'Pol as far as Sickbay and then I want you to rest. And stop worrying. It'll be okay."

The quick movement of the gray eyes in their bruised-looking hollows told him how desperately Malcolm wanted an answer to the most important question of all. But Jon wasn't quite ready for that yet. However his heart drove him, his head had to have the say in this one. In the last analysis, however much his tactical officer might have suffered, if he was still a risk to _Enterprise_ then he still had to go.

Thankfully, the corridor outside was empty as the three of them exited. However respectable the two men might look, their presence in her cabin at this hour would certainly have provoked speculation if they'd been spotted. But it was well into the Gamma shift by now and the corridors were still dim, simulating night-time.

Nobody said anything as they walked to Sickbay. T'Pol appeared subdued – no doubt she was pretty damn tired too, and had a lot to think about. Malcolm hardly seemed able to set one foot in front of another, but was stumbling along half-blind with weariness; it was unlikely that Phlox would have to use too strong a sedative to get him back to sleep, if indeed any was required at all.

It wasn't too great a distance to Phlox's domain. Jon paused outside long enough to hear the doc's voice, and then turned and began almost shambling back to his own quarters. At one turning he hesitated. He didn't have his chronometer on but could guess that by now it was really hardly worth going to bed at all; maybe he might just detour to the Mess Hall and pick up a couple of cups of coffee. There had been times in the Expanse when he'd missed his night's sleep altogether, what with one thing or another, so he knew from bitter experience that it could be done. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, but yeah, it could be done. And there were still a few days before they'd reach Berengarius, so hopefully no crises would erupt in the meantime.

Well. Maybe even a couple of hours' sleep would be better than none at all. He shook his head, and resumed his original course.

He'd forgotten for a moment that Trip was sharing his quarters. It seemed that the engineer was exhausted too, because the light didn't even make him stir; he was lying belly-down, his face turned to one side and half-buried in the pillow. His left hand hung over the edge of the bed, motionless.

Patting Porthos in passing, Jon silently stripped back down to his sleeping shorts and got back into bed. Fortunately, Trip was a quiet sleeper – though right now it felt like a Fourth of July parade could have marched through the cabin and not had much hope of keeping its owner awake. Already Jon could feel the weight of oblivion bearing down on him.

"You owe me, buddy," he whispered as he put out the light. "And I hope you never get to find out _how much_ you owe me."

A few thoughts oozed through his weary mind as sleep began rolling inexorably over it. Thoughts about T'Pol, and Erika. Either, neither; neither, either. Seemed like both of them already had their 'significant others'. Erika was still too much like he himself had been way back when; before he made the bitter discovery that for him, the heart of the dream was hollow. Maybe hers would not be. Maybe for her, beyond the next star….

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	11. The Epilogue

"At ease, Lieutenant."

Reed immediately assumed the correct position, his head up and eyes leveled at the bulkhead directly opposite him.

'At ease' certainly didn't describe his tactical officer right now. Malcolm's face was carefully impassive, but his whole body was rigid with tension.

Jon had taken time for serious thought, as well as holding several talks with T'Pol. He knew this had been hard on the subject of these discussions, particularly as the intervening period covered Christmas (traditionally the season of 'goodwill to all'), but for the sake of the ship he couldn't afford to make a mistake. He knew, too, that it must have been difficult for Reed to have held his tongue, with his fate hanging in the balance, but to give the man his due he'd worked diligently every day, as disciplined and efficient as he'd ever been, never betraying by so much as a look that he was waiting desperately for the verdict.

"I guess you know why I've called you here, Malcolm," he said evenly.

The Brit could hardly grow any paler, but his gaze never wavered. "I imagine so, sir. You've come to a decision regarding my services on board _Enterprise_."

"It hasn't been an easy decision to make," the captain continued. "I guess it says a lot for the faith I had in you that it came as such a shock when you decided not to have any in me."

He'd used the word 'had' deliberately, and saw the dark lashes flicker. He also saw the already tight mouth clench on a protest at the cruelly blunt description of how the betrayal had felt; he knew that Reed had pleaded with his old handler to be allowed to tell him the truth, but however many 'reasons' there might have been, still the fact remained that when the decision had to be made he'd obeyed Harris.

Once again he felt the stir of doubt in his gut. The officer in front of him had been – on his own admission – a member of a shady organization whose roots ran in deep shadows beneath Starfleet. His files, on closer examination, contained whole chunks of material that was 'classified' – and it was almost impossible to imagine what kind of missions would have required the kind of obedience that could only be guaranteed by putting a man through the kind of torture T'Pol's investigation had revealed. Was it truly possible to effect so fundamental a change by making the man relive that ghastly event and altering how it had played out in reality?

He was still trying to fully come to grips with what he'd discovered about Reed's past, and about what had been done to him. He wasn't sure that T'Pol had told him nearly all of what she'd found out during that mind-meld, though he trusted her enough to believe that she'd told him whatever she deemed relevant to the decision he had to make; it had been obvious that she herself was still struggling a bit with it, so he hadn't pressed her. Whenever he remembered those horrible few minutes in her quarters, trying to win the trust of his terrified, delusional security officer, he was still having problems with it himself. She hadn't told him whether she intended to tell Malcolm about that particular part of the 'treatment' – at a guess, she'd gloss over it. It was hard to imagine anything more mortifying for the Brit to deal with than the knowledge that his captain had seen him in such a pitiful state.

But his decision had to be made. It wasn't fair either to himself or to Reed to keep second-guessing himself. He had to make the call and stand by it once and for all. And T'Pol had come down emphatically on the side of clemency: perhaps no-one else could come close to fully understanding what the lieutenant had been willing to endure to stay aboard _Enterprise_ , and surely she'd have picked up on it if it had been – as Jon's newly cynical and suspicious side had suggested – merely a ploy to ensure his continued usefulness as Harris's tool aboard the flagship of the Fleet.

Besides, the man had once deliberately tried to kill himself to safeguard the ship, had pulled out the air hose of his EV suit so that his body could be detached with the segment of hull and the Romulan mine pinning him to it. Surely that wasn't the act of a spy and a saboteur. That had to count for something, in anybody's judgment.

Jon looked down at his hands, lightly linked on his Ready Room table.

"We'll be reaching the Berengarius system the day after tomorrow," he said slowly. "As far as the reports I've received go, the planet Starfleet's interested in is uninhabited, but this investigation's very important. We can't afford to have anything go wrong. That means I need to have an officer I can trust in charge of my ship's security."

Silence, in response to that: the silence that precedes the death blow. But when he looked up, the face opposite him was immobile, schooled to accept it without flinching.

"So I guess you'll need to be on the alert as usual when we're checking the place out."

Now and again, life in the Big Chair afforded him moments of pure enjoyment. He had one of these now as he watched realization sink into Malcolm Reed, watched the set expression give way to incredulous joy. Or at least as close to it as the English 'stiff upper lip' thing allowed; it hardly qualified as a beam of delight, but nevertheless unmistakable delight diffused through the previously rigid features, making him look momentarily ten years younger.

After just a moment, however, the lieutenant seemed to feel that he was behaving with quite inappropriate informality on duty. He straightened up, and smoothed out the unseemly smile with a palpable effort as his gaze snapped back to his favorite bulkhead. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Request permission to return to the Bridge."

"Granted."

All the pride and resolution of the British Royal Navy was in the way Reed whirled about and marched for the door.

As it closed behind him, Jon permitted his own smile to break out. Sure, he'd made a tough decision, and only events would prove whether he'd made the right one. But life out here was a risk, and once you'd weighed the evidence you had to go with your gut instincts.

And that, in his book at least, was the definition of 'being human'.

 **The End.**

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